Hero Quest Chapter 1 Part 5

“Should be about normal, 5:30 or so.”

“Sounds good.”

John took a quick shower and put on his workout clothes.  He began to package up his things for the day.  It felt like he was moving out.  He needed to take his hero bag that had his planner and a wide assortment of items that he needed.  It was a result of being a boy scout.  “Always prepared” was their motto and John Hero was definitely prepared.  He had administrative items like markers, pens, paper and highlighters.  He had a first aid kit, ropes, matches, super glue and duct tape in case an emergency came up.  Also weighing him down on his approach to the car was his laptop computer and a backpack with his clothes for the day.

Lumbering to the car with this seemingly overwhelming amount of luggage, he seemed to stall out at each door as he would need to reposition everything so that he could open the door.  Carefully he would move through, then close the door and move to the next portal.  When everything was in the car he would do a mental checklist.  On more than one occasion he had forgotten something important, like pants so he wanted to make sure that he was ready to make it through the day.  When all was in order he sat in the car, started an audio book and took off to toward the office gym.

    Sweat permeated his clothes and made him shiver just a bit as he lugged his gear into his office.  People gawked at him in the parking lot as he made his way to the office.  “Don’t you know its winter?”

“Is it?  I hadn’t noticed the snow or all of the people in coats.” 

The workout had been great but now he needed to cool down and get to work.  In his office he set up his lap top, sipped some water and grabbed the communication book from the front office.  Casually he skimmed the entries looking for anything that he might need to address.  “This is a Crisis Shelter,” he muttered to himself as he read several of the entries.  He felt his heart bounce between joy and sorrow over the various entries. 

“How is the tension between rooms 8 and 3?”  Darlene seemed to be waiting for that question.  “It’s a time bomb. Saturday is the first entry on it but I think there were issues before then.”

“I thought they were like best friends?”

“They were but something happened over at the men’s mission.  I’m not sure.  There was a rumor that one of their men were kicked out for fighting.”

John thought about what she had just said.  “Is the tension spreading?”

“Not yet.  It looks like it’s just those two for now but I don’t think that will last.  I was making a bed in room 9 and overheard a couple of ladies taking sides.”

“We’ll need to address this right away.  I’ll get dressed here and go over the men’s mission and find out what I can.   Anything else going on?”

Real Life at the Crisis Shelter February 6-12, 2012

Monday February 6:    One of our moms moved over the join the program at Anna Ogden Hall today.  One of our guests said she had an overnight job but it turned out that she just wanted to spend the night at her sister’s house.  When we called to check on the job we let her know that we were onto her and she returned to the shelter as normal.

Tuesday February 7:   One of our good workers moved out having told staff that she was moving to California.  Turns out that she is still in Spokane but felt embarrassed about telling staff that she was just going to go party for awhile.  Late Tuesday we received a guest who was fleeing a domestic violence.  She looked pretty beat up and cut.  She mostly just wanted to go home, but with the help of the police we were able to convince her to wait it out at the shelter until it was safer to go home.  The hotel across the street was raided by law enforcement.  The papers say that it was a trafficking bust.  This created quite the show for the guests of the Crisis Shelter.  A few ladies who were thinking of going back to the streets decided to stay another night as a result.

Wednesday February 8:    Shots fired near the hotel across the street.  It does not seem like anyone was hit but it definitely shook things up around the shelter.  There is much speculation that it is connected to the raid on Tuesday night. 

Thursday February 9:   We checked a young lady into the shelter.  As we were working through check in it became obvious that she was very high.  She was very gracious and we helped her get into detox.  It was a very peaceful transfer.

Friday February 10:  One of our singles checked out in order to avoid becoming a good worker.  (You must either have a real world job or sign up to be a good worker at 4 weeks.)       

Weekend:    We are in the process of creating a more phased stay at the Crisis Shelter.  We have several rooms that are for initial stay, others that are for those about to become good workers and those that are either good workers or have real world jobs.  In order to get the rooms to this standard we moved many ladies around.  This created a certain amount of instability and insecurity.  Staff handled the extra stress well and worked to explain the big picture to everyone. 

A lady was checked in at 6 pm and by 7 pm had stolen a $400 phone from another guest and jumped the fence.  The other ladies wanted to string her up so I am hopeful that she either returns the phone or is not found by the other ladies.          

General comments:  We are in the process of revamping our good worker program and address weaknesses that came out of the SWOT we did in January.    

Progress on my goals February 5-11, 2012

	Target	Actually Done
Leadership Bible	Be on page 210 (5 pg a day)	On page 211
Faith in Action Bible	Be on page 252 (6 pg a day)	On page 252
Message Read Through	7 Days youversion program	On track
Running	15 miles a week	19 miles
Crunches	1000 a week	1100
Floss	7 times a week	7 Days
Face Cleaning/Lotions	7 times a week	6 Times
I Like Book	7 times a week	7
Modules	2 a week	2
Guy Time	1 a week	1
Self Exam	7 a week	5
Book Reading	1 Book a week	1
Evening Prayer Meeting	26 times a year	4
Paid Speaking	3 a quarter	0
Date with Cara	3 a quarter	2
Date with Rachel	1 a quarter	0

I realized as I was updating my tracker that I had the Faith in Action Bible and the Leadership Bible tracking backward.  That is now all fixed up.  The book I read this week was from Wendy's founder Dave Thomas called "Well Done"  The book is a great lesson in leadership of course around hamburgers.  He has many great things to say about paying it forward.  I would like to lead the Crisis Shelter to do something similar.  Don't charge them money to stay at the shelter, but require them to help others in the community.  What a little army they would have!
While I do this work to become a better man, my time with God has led me in a different path that I would like to share on this blog.  I long to become the sort of man with a solid foundation.  The purpose of this foundation is to be able to stand WHEN the storms come.  I also hope and pray that my strength will be available to others along the way.  Most of all available to my family but also to the ladies at the Crisis Shelter, friends and family as needed.  I hope to teach and train others to also build this foundation.  Life feels and is so much more stable this way.  With all of that said, I am in the process of learning to be content with being insignificant.  I expect fame and fortune but if it never comes than I need to be ok with obscurity.  I may not be giving my kids a large inheritance but I do intend to pass on to them a legacy.